What is Quantitative research versus qualitative research
Qualitative research.
Synonyms(?): Constructivist, humanist.
Covers five sub-areas: phenomological, grounded theory, ethnographic, case study, and narrative research.
Open ended questions. Research guides and is guided by the research process.
Data is open ended text–difficult to represent as numbers
Measures perceptions, feelings, values
Postpositivism tries to reconcile quantitative and qualitative approaches.
Quote in support of quantitative data
“When you can measure what you are speaking about, and express it in numbers, you know something about it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind; it may be the beginning of knowledge, but you have scarely, in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science.”
“The individual source of the statistics may easily be the weakest link. Harold Cox tells a story of his life as a young man in India. He quoted some statistics to a Judge, an Englishman, and a very good fellow. His friend said, Cox, when you are a bit older, you will not quote Indian statistics with that assurance.”
“The Government are very keen on amassing statistics—they collect them, add them, raise them to the nth power, take the cube root and prepare wonderful diagrams. But what you must never forget is that every one of those figures comes in the first instance from the chowty dar [chowkidar] (village watchman), who just puts down what he damn pleases.”
Break #3
What you have learned
Quantitative versus qualitative research
What’s coming next
Other research dichotomies
Research dichotomies
Dichotomies are always wrong.
Trichotomies.
Monochotomies.
Spectrum.
But they are still useful.
Shorthand for others.
Guidance for statistical analysis.
Helpful for critical appraisal.
No “best” level in these dichotomies.
Mixed methods.
Theoretical versus applied
Theoretical: no benefit to patients now.
Applied: potential for immediate benefit.
“Experience by itself teaches nothing… Without theory, experience has no meaning. Without theory, one has no questions to ask. Hence, without theory, there is no learning.”
W. Edwards Deming, in The New Economics for Industry, Government, Education.
Translational versus basic
Basic research: “without thought of practical ends.”
Translational research: transition from “bench to bedside.”
Called T1 research.
Next step (T2): transition from bedside to community.
T3, T4, T5???
Break #4
What you have learned
Other research dichotomies
What’s coming next
Still more research dichotomies
Laboratory versus field.
Laboratory: controlled setting
Unnatural.
Control extraneous variables.
Field setting: in the clinic
Ecologic validity:
“The methods, materials and setting of the study must approximate the real-world that is being examined.”